9/11: Five Years Later
By Dave Hoffman (09/04/06)
5 years. Wow. I watched a special on Court TV, entitled “On Native Soil: The Documentary of the 9/11 Commission Report”. I have to say that the tears and anger have not abated over the some 1826 days that have passed since the towers fell. Life goes on, of course, and the living learn to cope, to adjust, but there is a certain dissonance, a certain feeling of being disconnected between past and future, that pervades the senses.
A break has occurred that reverberates through the passages of our minds, reminding us most forcefully that evil is not some subject for scholarly study. It is a monster that lies under our bed, in our closet, around the corner, waiting for the light to go out so it can pounce. Fill a pan with water and place it on the stove. Then light the burner beneath, and allow time and science to work their established patterns. Eventually, the water boils. Now, cover the pan with a lid. The action below the lid becomes no longer noticeable, with nothing but a brief escape of steam or a soft rattle of the lid to remind you of what lies beneath.
So is my heart, my mind, as the memories place across the theater of my mind, and the pictures of that day recall the horror of it all, a horror that lives in a corner of my soul, never to be dislodged. My heart cries out for vengeance, for the slaughter of all involved, for the death of their families, their friends, their comrades, their fellow conspirators, the homes they lived in, the towns that came from, the culture that spawned their evil, but to what purpose? It’s better, perhaps, that my mind calls for justice, for the use of force to kill the killers or jail them forever. And so we are at war.
This is a World War, perhaps the last that humanity will fight, for it encompasses ideology, religion, and societal beliefs, rather than the more usual desire to expand the boundaries of a country that stood at the root of so many wars before. Now we fight for control of the human mind, with liberation the promise of one side, and eternal enslavement the perceived view of the other. War has grown beyond race, beyond territory, beyond greed, into the basic and fundamental religious beliefs of two groups that have wildly opposed each other since the inception of the second of the two. Christian versus Muslim. One will attempt to eradicate the other.
Oh, the arguments of “peaceful coexistence” will once again be dusted off and presented for the world to consider, the peaceniks will join in singing “Kumbaya”, appeasement will awaken from its slumber and rear its head from dreams that were spawned prior to World War II, and certain political groups will state the need for reason and consensus, but it matters not. We are on the path to a dark place in the history of our planet, perhaps to Armageddon itself, for we face a bloody war that will see the slaughter of innocents and of innocence, once and for all time on a scale unprecedented in our history. And the beginning was so small. For its horror, what happened on September 11, 2001, was but a small beginning, a faltering, small, first step toward the brink of the abyss, on which edge we teeter, about to plunge into what could be the first and last fully nuclear war of the history of this planet. Odd, that men argue about temperature.
The global warming believers quote their horrendous warnings, while more reasoned scientists point out a temperature change in the last fifty years or so of -5 degrees to +1 degree while mankind moves like lemmings toward the brink, preparing to unleash devices that can raise the local temperature by a million degrees or more. The temperature of Hell. Hell was unleashed, those 5 years ago, set free from its chains and presented to earth like a deformed monster of a child, the spawn of what? The evil that we do to one another? Our sin? Refusal to stand for justice? Turning our backs on the frantic copulation of disease, hatred, ignorance, poverty, sick twisted excuses for religion? Thus it spawned the monster that is set to devour us all. And I offer nothing. Nothing but prayer, and the hope that God has not turned His back on us too.
The task that lies ahead will take courage. Courage that is seen in the day-to-day efforts of those who wear the uniforms of our nations armed forces, and the uniforms of our allies. Courage not seen in the leaders we have elected to serve us. Courage to realize that we face a long and arduous war, one that will last into the future of our children, and grandchildren, and beyond. Courage to accept that, try as we may, we may not prevent a second devastating attack on native soil, or subsequent attacks. Courage to realize that the war is being fought throughout the world. Courage to realize that there are those, even in our own country, that secretly hopes we lose.
As The Rubiyat says, “Todays madness did yesterday prepare”. And yesterday’s mistakes led to the attack on the Twin Towers. Both attacks. It’s time. Time to set aside political bickering. Time to set aside finger pointing. Time to back away from blaming Presidents, past, present, or future. No purpose will be served, no goal will be achieved, no end will be reached by crowing over the dead past that has placed us where we are. The lesson is engraved on the National Archives building, in Washington, D. C. “What is past, is prologue” and the lesson to be learned is the lesson that history has shown us countless times. We cannot change the past. We can act in the present, and we can change the course of our ship in its travels to the future, but we cannot change the past. Will we destroy the evil that threatens us, or will we succumb to it? If you wish to bring to justice those who attacked us, their organizations and backers, those that support their actions, I applaud you. If you wish to appease them, to pull back, to negotiate, I suggest that you not have children. You will be providing future slaves for those who stand against us. 9/11 has changed the world. Whatever one says, however one colors the issues, regardless of nuance and political maneuver, we are in a war to the death. Choose your side carefully.
Copyright September 2, 2006 by Dave Hoffman. Use granted to all who note that this article originally appeared at Capitol Hill Coffee House, and provide link to same.
Beneficium accipere libertatem est vendere.
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